Episode No. 500 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Nancy Grossman and Stacy Lynn Waddell.
Grossman is featured in “Nasher Mixtape,” a series of micro-exhibitions at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas through September 26; and in “Vibrant: Artists Engage with Color” at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro through June 26.
Grossman’s leather-wrapped wooden sculptures are among the most iconic works of twentieth-century art, but are far from her only engagements with the figure. Grossman started her career by painting the female figure, went on to collages built from leather and other found material, to dyed-paper collages of the human figure and more. The Tang Museum at Skidmore College presented a retrospective of her work in 2012.
Waddell is included in three ongoing museum exhibitions, including:
- “Graphic Pull: Contemporary Prints from the Collection” at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University through June 6. The exhibition is open to to the Duke community only; a thorough virtual tour is available here.
- “Silent Streets: Art in the Time of the Pandemic” at the Mint Museum Uptown in Charlotte. A closing date has not yet been determined; and
- “Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale” at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia through September 5.
Waddell’s work examines both real and imagined histories, often with materials and processes that themselves reference the past.
Air date: June 3, 2021.
Nancy Grossman, Untitled, 1968.
Nancy Grossman, A, 1979-81.
Nancy Grossman, Brush, 1973.
Nancy Grossman, The Fall, 1962.
Nancy Grossman, For David Smith, 1965.
Nancy Grossman, Untitled (Double Head), 1971.
Nancy Grossman, Untitled, 1971.
Nancy Grossman, Twisting Column Figure, 1976.
Nancy Grossman, Figure, 1970.
Nancy Grossman, Gunhead, 1991.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, Awful Conflagration of the Steam Ship Lexington (after Nathaniel Currier), 1840/2011, 2011.
Stacy Lynn Waddell. Untitled (for Araminta Ross, now Harriet Tubman, our Moses, who first chose freedom for herself then led many out from bondage as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad never losing a passenger while carrying a pistol, singing songs of liberation and avoiding those that would call for her death; thirty-four years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and a life of faith and tireless service she accepted gifts of adoration from Queen Victoria the granddaughter of Queen Sophia Charlotte, Great Britain’s first biracial royal of African and German descent and namesake of the largest city in North Carolina), 2021; Untitled (for the young, Black women of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founded in April 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina who challenged and abandoned the politics of respectability in favor of a strategy that allowed for a radical reimagining of freedom and show of solidarity by adopting the uniform of the Black farmer and wage laborer as they marched and organized to destabilize and dismantle Jim Crow), 2021; Untitled (for Anliza Massenburg Gill, my maternal Grandmother born to Zollie Coffey and Martha Mitchell Massenburg on July 5, 1918 in Franklin County, North Carolina; the seventh of 14 children; four sons and ten daughters; who married the love of her life Otis Gill on December 25, 1941 and remained married for sixty-nine years building a beautiful and enduring legacy steeped in faith, family and community that was passed down to their 7 children, 11 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild; who taught us by her daily example that: Whenever hearts are happy, It’s a simple thing to do, To see some other sadder hearts, And make them happy too, The joy that spreads with others, The joy that multiples, Makes someone else happy, On the other side, 2021.
Stacy Lynn Waddell. Untitled (for Araminta Ross, now Harriet Tubman, our Moses, who first chose freedom for herself then led many out from bondage as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad never losing a passenger while carrying a pistol, singing songs of liberation and avoiding those that would call for her death; thirty-four years after the Emancipation Proclamation, and a life of faith and tireless service she accepted gifts of adoration from Queen Victoria the granddaughter of Queen Sophia Charlotte, Great Britain’s first biracial royal of African and German descent and namesake of the largest city in North Carolina), 2021; Untitled (for the young, Black women of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee founded in April 1960 at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina who challenged and abandoned the politics of respectability in favor of a strategy that allowed for a radical reimagining of freedom and show of solidarity by adopting the uniform of the Black farmer and wage laborer as they marched and organized to destabilize and dismantle Jim Crow), 2021; Untitled (for Anliza Massenburg Gill, my maternal Grandmother born to Zollie Coffey and Martha Mitchell Massenburg on July 5, 1918 in Franklin County, North Carolina; the seventh of 14 children; four sons and ten daughters; who married the love of her life Otis Gill on December 25, 1941 and remained married for sixty-nine years building a beautiful and enduring legacy steeped in faith, family and community that was passed down to their 7 children, 11 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild; who taught us by her daily example that: Whenever hearts are happy, It’s a simple thing to do, To see some other sadder hearts, And make them happy too, The joy that spreads with others, The joy that multiples, Makes someone else happy, On the other side, 2021.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, Components and a View of Catskill Creek (for T. M. & T. C.), 2017/1833/2020.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, A Cross Current and an Oxbow seen from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (for T. M. & T. C.), 2014/1836/2020.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, Oval Continuity in a Romantic Landscape (for T. M. & T. C.), 2017/1826/2021.
Stacy Lynn Waddell, Closed Chimes rising from a Lake with Dead Trees in the Catskills (for T. M. & T. C.), 2009/1825/2021.
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